"Grumbling" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was in no state to be taken on a journey, and her mother went grumbling down the stair at the unchancy ...
— Grisly Grisell • Charlotte M. Yonge
... arrayed himself. The wife and daughter of the prisoner were heard by the sentinels scolding the supposed cobbler for having done his work ill, and the man came out with his hat slouched over his eyes, and grumbling, as if at the manner in which they had treated him. In this way the prisoner passed all the guards without suspicion, and made his escape to France. He was afterwards outlawed by the Court of Justiciary, which proceeded to the trial of Duncan MacGregor, or Drummond, ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... asleep on his blanket, was awakened by the shots. Listening further, he heard a great cry from some man in mortal distress or anguish, and rose up grumbling at the ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... the poor; the Priory was always so full of ould men and ould women sitting around the big fire in the kitchen that the cook could hardly get near it. There they were, eating their meals and burning their shins till they were speckled like a trout's back, and grumbling all the time; but Father Dwyer liked them, and ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... The people went on grumbling, but they covered their food, since they must do so or lose it. And they had to admit that there was much less sickness from that ...
— Across the Fruited Plain • Florence Crannell Means
... Feodorovitch!" cried Ivan Ivanovitch, who was, as has already been stated, exceedingly curious, and could not restrain his impatience as the chief of police began to ascend to the balcony, yet never raised his eyes, and kept grumbling at his foot, which could not be persuaded to mount the step at the ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... nation. Our chosen authors stand not for Victorian thought but only for certain interesting phases thereof. Macaulay, the busy man of affairs, voiced the pride of his generation in British traditions. Carlyle lived aloof, grumbling at democracy, denouncing its shams, calling it to repentance. Ruskin, a child of fortune, was absorbed in art till the burden of the world oppressed him; whereupon he gave his money to the cause of social reform and went himself among the poor to share ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long
... there was another portage. We got round that, however, without much difficulty. The banks were more level and the road not so long; but the work afterwards was tough. The stream was so rapid that the men were compelled to wade and push the batteaux against the current. There was a little grumbling among us, and quite a number of the men deserted. Two days after reaching the Carratunc Falls, we came to the Great Carrying Place. There work was to begin to which all our other work was play. The Great Carrying Place extended from the Kennebec to the ...
— The Yankee Tea-party - Or, Boston in 1773 • Henry C. Watson
... beforehand, and there was nothing to be done but to strike the tents, saddle the mules, and start. Ulysse, still very sleepy, was lifted into the pannier, almost at the first streak of dawn, while the slaves were grumbling at being so early called up; and to a Moor who wakened up and offered to take charge of the little Bey, Yusuf replied that the child had been ...
— A Modern Telemachus • Charlotte M. Yonge
... less sanguine. Day after day Bob had patiently tutored his big chum in order that he might contrive to scrape through his lessons. It was Bob who did the work and Van who serenely accepted the fruits of it—accepted it but too frequently with scant thanks and even with grumbling. Bob, however, doggedly kept at his self-imposed task. To-day's Latin translation was but an illustration of the daily program; Bob did the pioneering and Van came upon the field when the path was cleared ...
— The Story of Sugar • Sara Ware Bassett
... was nothing for Dr. Lavendar to do but get out and take Goliath by the head, grumbling, as he did so, that Cyrus "shouldn't own such ...
— An Encore • Margaret Deland
... modern mining camp. The explorer kept military discipline over his men. They received no pay which could be squandered away on liquor. Discontent grew rife. Taking Father Messaiger, the Jesuit, as chaplain, M. de la Verendrye ordered his grumbling voyageurs to their canoes, and, passing through the Straits of the Sault, headed his fleet once more for the Western Sea. Other explorers had preceded him on this part of the route. The Jesuits had coasted the north shore of Lake Superior. So had Radisson. In 1688 De Noyon ...
— Pathfinders of the West • A. C. Laut
... grumbling while Colin trotted happily beside them. "You're a fearful ass, Jerrold. You're simple ruining that kid. He thinks he can come butting into everything. Here's the whole afternoon spoiled for all three of us. ...
— Anne Severn and the Fieldings • May Sinclair
... defection from it seemed likely to occur and to make out Matteson's majority. Lincoln pondered briefly; then, subjecting all else to the great principle of "anti-Nebraska," he urged his friends to transfer their votes to Trumbull. With grumbling and reluctance they did so, and by this aid, on the tenth ballot, Trumbull was elected. In a letter to Washburne, Lincoln wrote: "I think you would have done the same under the circumstances, though Judge Davis, who came down this morning, declares ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. I. • John T. Morse
... here, last night you thought the things I had for my evening company were too plain, and now you're grumbling because ...
— Patty at Home • Carolyn Wells
... during our lives, but after our deaths, the exclusive property of the society. Also we promise and bind ourselves to obey all the commands and orders of the trustees and their subordinates, with the utmost zeal and diligence, without opposition or grumbling; and to devote all our strength, good-will, diligence, and skill, during our whole lives, to the common service of the society and for the satisfaction of its trustees. Also we consign in a similar manner our children, so long as they ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff
... exclaimed, "would like always to be in the same place? Such a person is a mere cipher. We establish an intellectual superiority when we show ourselves superior to place. A genuine man is always a citizen of the world. It is your vegetable man that can not go far without grumbling, finding fault with all he sees, talking of comforts and such small matters, and longing to get home again. Such a man puts me in mind of every member of the cow family that I ever knew. He is never at peace with himself or the world, but always groaning and thrusting out his horns, until ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... anybody else all the difficulties of that lunch would begin with the neck—even a thicker neck. Parenthetically, one remembers that the ostrich's neck is not always thin. Catch Atkinson here in a roaring soliloquy, and you shall see his red neck distended as a bladder, with a mighty grumbling and grunting. This by the way. The neck makes nothing of the domino difficulty, or the tenpenny nail difficulty, or the door-knob difficulty, or the broken bottle difficulty—which are not difficulties to the camel-goose. On the contrary, the neck revels in ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 25, January 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... of the pagazis caused a halt, for none of them appeared again until after dark. The Beluches, gloomy, dejected, discontented, and ever grumbling, form as disagreeable a party as it was ever the unfortunate lot ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke
... passer-by—a youth even rushes to the horses and stops them in order to induce the traveller to alight and put up at the hostelry; but after a long discussion, on we go, and slowly wind our way through the intricate streets crowded with men and women and children—all grumbling and making some remark as one goes by. At one point a circle of people squatting in the middle of a road round a pile of water-melons, at huge slices of which they each bit lustily, kept us waiting some time, till they moved themselves and their melons ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... as usual at the castle, and it was now about noon. The baron, accompanied by his wife, walked in the sunshine, grumbling because the molehills against which his foot tripped were not yet leveled. This led him to the conclusion that there was no reliance to be placed upon hired dependents of any kind; and that Wohlfart ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... The dinginess of the house had not escaped him on the morning that they had made their first inspection, but Tommy, who loved freshness and colours, had made no sign. Had you probed the matter, Tommy would probably have remarked, with some annoyance, that it was not her job to begin by grumbling. ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... the heels of his pursuers and, once across the state line, he would be beyond their grasp until the Sheriff's huntsmen had whistled in their pack and gone grumbling back to conform with the law's intricate requirements. At that point the man-hunt fell into another jurisdiction and extradition papers would involve correspondence between a governor at Richmond and a ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... You've let out a great deal more than I wanted you to, now!" cried the Old Squire. "I remember now, I did forget that kettle last year. 'Twas too bad. I don't blame you, Ruth Ann, I don't blame you in the least for grumbling about it." ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... governess was in her own sitting room—it was not often that Miss Carlyle invited her to theirs of an evening—and the house was quite. Mr. Carlyle was deep in the pages of one of the monthly periodicals, and Miss Carlyle sat on the other side of the fire, grumbling, and grunting, ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... rapid, called the Galley, being over a brown sandstone rock, succeeds, in which rapids follow rapids at short intervals. We encamped at the Raft rapids. The men toiled like dogs, but willingly and without grumbling. Next day (21st) we were early on the water, and passed the crossing of the Indian portage path from St. Charles Bay, at La Pointe, to the Falls of St. Anthony. We followed a wide bend of the river, around the four pause ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... Miss Ferrars may dine with us, and she shall ask her brother. How glad I shall be when she goes into half-mourning! I scarcely catch a glimpse of her." And all this time his wife and daughter did nothing but quote her, which was still more irritating, for, as he would say, half-grumbling and half-smiling, "If it had not been for me she would not have ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... before day-break. None of our party was ever more ready to alight, or to take his supper, than Szaleh, and none more averse to start. During the whole way he was continually grumbling, and endeavouring to persuade the others to turn back. We were one hour in doubling the Abou Burko, a chalky rock, whose base is washed by the waves. On the other side we passed, at two hours, in the bottom of ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt
... life was spent in assiduous work from sunrise to sunset. There, her mother, an austere, somber woman, like most village matrons to whom life had proved no light matter; here, the lady's maid, often grumbling, but at times kind and even condescending. The chief difference between the two modes of life consisted in the daily visits of the countess, who generally said nothing, but passed with a solemn air through this roomful of ...
— The Little Russian Servant • Henri Greville
... to get a lot of publicity out of my arrest as if he himself had detected the whole concern, instead of having it thrust under his nose by the London chemical company—was preparing to ride over me roughshod. I insisted that he read the warrant for my arrest and with much grumbling he finally did so. It had been issued under the Official Secret Act that had been rushed through the House of Commons. I was charged with endangering the safeguards of the ...
— The Secrets of the German War Office • Dr. Armgaard Karl Graves
... rode through, scarcely bending their proud heads—much to the relief of the more timorous members of the crowd who had eyed the rear end of their noble steeds with a natural anxiety. Unfortunately the torches smoked a good deal, and there was some grumbling. ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... of the deer were equally distributed among the party by Mr. Hood who had volunteered, on the departure of Mr. Wentzel, to perform the duty of issuing the provision. This invidious task he had all along performed with great impartiality, but seldom without producing some grumbling amongst the Canadians, and on the present occasion the hunters were displeased that the heads and some other parts had not been added to their portions. It is proper to remark that Mr. Hood always took the smallest portion for his own mess, but this weighed little with these ...
— The Journey to the Polar Sea • John Franklin
... all now!" exclaimed Fronklyn. "I hope you will excuse me for grumbling, Lieutenant, when I could not make head nor tail ...
— A Lieutenant at Eighteen • Oliver Optic
... paid for his work; he was well received in society; the band liked him and the audiences liked him—the one cause of all his grumbling was the character of the bulk of the music he had to conduct. One might expect even a Wagner to prefer conducting a few pieces of tedious stuff, even to put up with poor antediluvian Onslow, rather ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman
... should place a doubly thick plank for sliding the box on board, as it seemed probable, she said, that the usual one would break in two, and then the valuable books borrowed of Professor Erpenius would be damaged or destroyed. The request caused much further grumbling, but was complied with at last and the chest deposited on the deck. The wind still continued to blow with great fury, and as soon as the sails were set the vessel heeled over so much, that Elsje implored the skipper to cause the box to be securely lashed, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... driven, racing like mad against his will and the rival nations now in the field to force the pace; a name for enterprise; the close commercial connection of a man who speculated—who, to put it plainly, lived on his wits; hurried onward and onward; always doubting, munching, grumbling at satisfaction, in perplexity of the gratitude which is apprehensive of black Nemesis at a turn of the road,—to confound so wild a whip as Victor Radnor. He had never forgiven the youth's venture ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... before Solon returned to the boat, grumbling at the weather, the mud, and, above all, at the rheumatism that forbade him to remain out in the wet ...
— Raftmates - A Story of the Great River • Kirk Munroe
... past belief." Then he asked, roughly: "Is such a soul as that WORTH saving?" He rose up, mumbling and grumbling, and started for the door, stumping vigorously along. At the threshold he turned and rasped out an admonition: "Reform! Drop this mean and sordid and selfish devotion to the saving of your shabby little souls, and hunt up something to ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... boat the apes became panic-stricken. They first moved uneasily about, and then commenced grumbling and whining. With difficulty Akut kept them in hand for a time; but when a particularly large wave struck the dugout simultaneously with a little squall of wind their terror broke all bounds, and, leaping to their feet, they all but overturned ...
— The Beasts of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... had enough grumbling from the fireroom. Put a fan in the air shaft, and don't come up here again with any nonsense. D'you expect to find cool breezes in the South Seas? No, they're hot as fire—hot ...
— Harrigan • Max Brand
... an empty building, and were aroused next morning at daybreak, and ordered to continue our march to Rivas, which was said to lie nine miles to the north of us. We set forward, grumbling sorely for lack of breakfast, and stiff from our twelve-miles' march of the evening before. Our path led us sometimes under the deep shades of a tangled forest, sometimes along the open lake-beach, on which the waves rolled with almost the swell of an ocean surf. A few miles short ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... meeting from which ladies are to be excluded. This mixture of the talents and knowledge of both sexes must be advantageous to the interests of society, by increasing domestic happiness.—Private virtues are public benefits: if each bee were content in his cell, there could be no grumbling hive; and if each cell were complete, the ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... red handkerchief, inconceivably soiled. The tramp removed it, grumbling and whining. Mifflin gave me the pistol to hold while he tied our prisoner's wrists together. In the meantime we heard a shout from the quarry. The three vagabonds were gazing up in ...
— Parnassus on Wheels • Christopher Morley
... on the top of this commotion, grumbling as he stepped over the porch, "The wind has taken half the ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... declined to give any decision, but said that the brothers must give them dinner as they had detained them so long; but the brothers flatly declined to do so as no decision had been given, and the villagers went away grumbling, while the brothers bought a pig with the money they had saved and had a jolly feast and as they ate the elder brother said: "See what a good plan mine was; but for it we should now have been ...
— Folklore of the Santal Parganas • Cecil Henry Bompas
... Grumbling, the man slunk back, and a woman took his place. This was better for the crowd, as her voice was shriller and she had less compunction about ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon
... First grumbling murmurs, next spasmodic disturbances defying police discipline, afterward outbreaks of thousands of workmen even in the larger cities, followed by armed and desperate uprisings in different provinces, demonstrated with seismic violence ...
— Trusia - A Princess of Krovitch • Davis Brinton
... only comfort he had been able to extract from his hard lot these many months of wandering, of work, of suffering such as he had never dreamed of—his only comfort was that his tender mother didn't know, his only sister would no more be worried by his grumbling and complaints, and his father would be convinced now that he wasn't a baby. Small comfort, too, to balance the hardships that had fallen to his lot since the money he had drawn from the savings bank—his little all—was ...
— Good Cheer Stories Every Child Should Know • Various
... dingy restaurant, smoking and laughing and grumbling till the next train was announced. At four that afternoon they arrived without further mishap at the most interesting station of its size in Europe—Monte Carlo. And Merrihew saw gold whichever way he looked: in the sunshine on the sea, in the glistening rails, in the reflecting ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... intercourse with Lilias there was a singular blending of respectful tenderness with the grumbling sourness that had become habitual to her. The child's unfailing energy and patience were a source of never-failing admiration to her; yet she always spoke to her as if she thought she needed a great deal of encouragement, ...
— The Orphans of Glen Elder • Margaret Murray Robertson
... something,' the affianced replies, half grumbling. 'The smallest encouragement thankfully received. And how did you pass ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... equivalent to, 'Heave away, boys.' There are splendid illuminations about to take place here, because the Pasha has got leave to make his youngest boy his successor, and people are ordered to rejoice, which they do with much grumbling—it ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... quite early, out of the evening air. The sun sets before seven o'clock. I still cough a good deal, and the bad food and drink are trying. But the life is very enjoyable; and as I have the run of the charts, and ask all sorts of questions, I get plenty of amusement. S- is an excellent traveller; no grumbling, and no gossiping, which, on board a ship like ours, is a great merit, for there ...
— Letters from the Cape • Lady Duff Gordon
... with money and jewels, and absolutely obey one when he was at home, and let one spend most of the time in Europe. But Mrs. Van Brounker-Courtfield says all that is only a sop to Cerberus, to keep the wives from grumbling at not being made love to like women of other nations are; that all men are hunters, and while ours in England chase foxes and are thrilled with politics the New Yorkers hunt dollars, and it is the same thing. Wall Street is their adored mistress, and ...
— Elizabeth Visits America • Elinor Glyn
... empty house where once had lived happy children, where there had been music and laughter, shouts and romping, but now remained only silence, freighted with sadness. A great loneliness surged over me. Despite the grumbling complaints of the old settlers, I had taken for granted that the country would always stay as I had found it, that other boys would have it to explore, and that it would thrill them even as it had thrilled me. I awoke at last to the distressing truth that few ...
— A Mountain Boyhood • Joe Mills
... purpose Thackeray was equipped with a singularly easy and sympathetic style, carved in slow soft curves where Dickens hacked out his images with a hatchet. There was a sort of avuncular indulgence about his attitude; what he called his "preaching" was at worst a sort of grumbling, ending with the sentiment that boys will be boys and that there's nothing new under the sun. He was not really either a cynic or a censor morum; but (in another sense than Chaucer's) a gentle pardoner: having seen the weaknesses he is sometimes almost weak about them. He really comes nearer ...
— The Victorian Age in Literature • G. K. Chesterton
... by a workman; he should then look round and find a chair, or some other article, which he should pretend requires repairing; he should then act the workman, by taking off his coat, rolling up his sleeves, and commencing work, often dropping his tools and grumbling about them the ...
— Games For All Occasions • Mary E. Blain
... rosy tint over all that he portrays. Though equally likely to induce into error, it is the pleasanter fault to those persons who merely read the tour for amusement, without proposing to follow in the footsteps of the tourist. Your complaining, grumbling travellers are bores, whether on paper or in a post-chaise; and, truth to tell, we have noticed in others of the Countess's books a disposition to look on the dark side of things. But this is not always the case, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various
... heels of his guide, he approached a door in the deck-house, devoted to officers' accommodations, beneath the bridge. Here the steward knocked discreetly. A heavy voice grumbling within was stilled for a moment, then barked a sharp invitation to enter. The steward turned the knob, announced dispassionately "Monseer Duchemin," and stood aside. Lanyard entered a well-lighted room, ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... just the same," he said, in more grumbling tones than before. "'Tain't every married women'd tackle a strange horse that way, especially if she'd never ben on one. An' I ain't forgot that you're goin' to have a saddle animal all to yourself some ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London
... was explaining that she didn't wish the girls to go to any trouble for her, although her eyes shone with delight at being thus honored, the door bell rang repeatedly, and the maid, grumbling under her breath, admitted Emma Dean, who skipped up the stairs ...
— Grace Harlowe's Third Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... thing you ever saw," Laura answered, her eyes beginning to twinkle at the memory of some of Mrs. Gilligan's escapades. "Why, one April Fool's Day she set the clock back an hour and Mr. Gilligan got up grumbling that it was awfully dark for six o'clock. Then when he was all ready and was starting out to work she told ...
— Billie Bradley and Her Inheritance - The Queer Homestead at Cherry Corners • Janet D. Wheeler
... a low grumbling of thunder was heard, and soon after the rain came down so heavily that, the umbrella forming an insufficient protection, Dumps and I sought shelter in the mouth of an alley. The plump was short-lived, and the little knots of people who had sought shelter ...
— My Doggie and I • R.M. Ballantyne
... day, bright and hot, blue and yellow. Drowsily I looked out to sea thinking of my mother and father. I wondered if they were getting anxious over my long absence. Beside me old Polynesia went on grumbling away in low steady tones; and her words began to mingle and mix with the gentle lapping of the waves upon the shore. It may have been the even murmur of her voice, helped by the soft and balmy air, that lulled me to sleep. I don't know. Anyhow I ...
— The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle • Hugh Lofting
... great wonder, with a kind of fury. "Wrong?" cries he. "He's walked more hundreds of miles than he has hairs upon his chin, and slept oftener in wet heather than dry sheets. Wrong, quo' she! Wrong enough, I would think! Wrong, indeed!" and he kept grumbling to himself as he fed me, ...
— Kidnapped • Robert Louis Stevenson
... with our redundance. No impassioned personage wishes he had been born in the age of Pitt, that his ardent youth might have eaten the dearest bread, dressed itself with the longest coat-tails and the shortest waist, or heard the loudest grumbling at the heaviest war-taxes; and it would be really something original in polished verse if one of our young writers declared he would gladly be turned eighty-five that he might have known the joy and pride of being an Englishman when there were fewer reforms and plenty of highwaymen, fewer ...
— Impressions of Theophrastus Such • George Eliot
... of the public service; it has brought to perfection the art of obtaining maximum results with a minimum expenditure. But Mr. Farmiloe remembered the other aspect of the matter; he would benefit so largely by this ill-paid undertaking that grumbling was foolish. Moreover, the thing carried dignity with it; he served his Majesty, he served the nation. And—ha, ha!—how very odd it would be to post one's letters in one's own post-office. One might really get a good ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... into the gambling room of the Plaza, where he somberly watched the players. The rattle of chips, the whir of the wheel, the monotonous drone of the faro dealer, the hum of voices, some eager, some tense, others exultant or grumbling, the incessant jostling, irritated him. He went out the front door, stepped down into the street, and walked eastward. Passing an open space between two buildings he became aware of the figure of a woman, and he wheeled as she stepped forward and grasped his arm. He recognized ...
— 'Firebrand' Trevison • Charles Alden Seltzer
... growls and prowls, and roams and foams, about the stage, in every direction, like a tiger in his cage, so that I never know on what side of me he means to be; and keeps up a perpetual snarling and grumbling like the aforesaid tiger, so that I never feel quite sure that he has done, and that it is my turn to speak. I do not think fifty pounds a night would hire me to play another engagement with him; but I only ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... have only a thousand now, but you shall have the balance this day week." I counted the thousand rubles, and handed them to him. "They are grumbling, rather, in Berlin over ...
— The International Spy - Being the Secret History of the Russo-Japanese War • Allen Upward
... and should not have acted without the consent of the Westerns and of their own bishop, Peter. In their haste to heal one schism they might cause another if they did not make it clear that the heretics had come over to them, and not they to the heretics.' This, however, was mere grumbling. Now that the Marcellians had given up the point in dispute, there was no great difficulty about their formal reconciliation. The West held out for Marcellus after his own disciples had forsaken him, so that he was not condemned at Rome till 380, ...
— The Arian Controversy • H. M. Gwatkin
... hat is half-a-crown, and whatever you may or may not think of Gift Books I can promise you that in this instance to pay your money is to get its worth. It is true that some of the contributors have given us work that we have already had an opportunity to know; but even here I am not grumbling, for among the stories that have already been published is Mr. LEONARD MERRICK'S "The Fairy Poodle," a tale so full of sparkle that the oftener I see it the better I shall be pleased. All tastes, however, are catered for. You can read tales by Sir J. M. BARRIE or ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, January 12, 1916 • Various
... to answer so ugly a letter in good temper. I am, as you intimate, losing much of the great confidence I placed in you, not from any act or omission of yours touching the public service, up to the time you were sent to Leavenworth, but from the flood of grumbling despatches and letters I have seen from you since. I knew you were being ordered to Leavenworth at the time it was done; and I aver that with as tender a regard for your honor and your sensibilities as I had for my own, it ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... he shifted her course a bit; and then, when his brother had got his clothes on, he helped to hoist the sail, and again they flew onward and shoreward, along with the waves that seemed to be racing them; but all the same he kept grumbling and growling to himself in Gaelic. Meanwhile Macleod had got a huge tarpaulin overcoat and wrapped Johnny Wickes in it, and put him in the ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... am to get back to my little Cap, for I know very well, reader, just as well as if you had told me, that you have been grumbling for some time for the want of Cap. But I could not help it, for, to tell the truth, I was pining after her myself, which was the reason that I could not do half justice to the scenes ...
— Capitola's Peril - A Sequel to 'The Hidden Hand' • Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth
... where's that valiant crook-backed prodigy, Dicky, your boy, that with his grumbling voice Was wont to cheer his dad in mutinies? Or, 'mongst the rest, where is your darling Rutland? Look, York, I dipped this napkin in the blood That valiant Clifford, with his rapier's point, Made issue from the bosom of ...
— The Critics Versus Shakspere - A Brief for the Defendant • Francis A. Smith
... land; For when the maid refused her husband's hand She might return by paying back the gold. And every maid who thus for wife was sold Received a bond from him who purchased her, To wed her as his wife, or else incur The forfeit of his bond, and thus no maids In all the land were found as grumbling jades, Whose fate it was to have no husbandman, For every woman had ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Literature • Anonymous
... she had no sisters of her own, poor thing!" Montjoie declared that he was "ready to split" at their cheek in asking, and in calling Bice "poor thing," she who was the most fortunate girl in the world. The Contessa took the good the gods provided her, without grumbling at the fate which transferred to her the little fortune which had been given to Bice to keep her from a mercenary marriage. It was not a mercenary marriage, in the ordinary sense of the word. To Bice's mind it was simply fulfilling her natural career; and she had no dislike ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... had by now reached the pole of the tent to which the strap of the haversack was attached. They could plainly hear him grumbling to himself as he thrust ...
— In Camp on the Big Sunflower • Lawrence J. Leslie
... taken a step to go back out of the shrubbery to the path, when an acute pain ran up his spine, and made him limp along to the gardener's cottage at the bottom of the grounds, grumbling to himself, and realising that men of sixty can't fall so lightly as those who are ...
— Syd Belton - The Boy who would not go to Sea • George Manville Fenn
... to dictate, and, grumbling at the prospect before him, he harnessed his horses and drove them to the door, where Madam ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes
... however, watched the service door at the end of the long hall with fretful eyes. "That piece," she confided to Harkness, the moment not being so important as to still her grumbling, "said she wouldn't come in. And when I told her she could just choose t'wixt this and the door she said she wouldn't dress up, anyways. Impertinent chit! Thinks she's too good for the place. Things have gone ...
— Red-Robin • Jane Abbott
... Sing it with what Tune you think fit, either higher low, (as to the pitch of your Voice) but with this caution, that you reckon how many Notes you have above or below it, that your Voice in its pitch may be so managed as to reach them both without Squeaking or Grumbling, or any harsh ...
— The School of Recreation (1696 edition) • Robert Howlett
... They protested, grumbling that they had risked enough already when they had captured him an hour earlier. But in the end they came to Pesquiera's condition. The prisoner's hands were tied behind him and his feet released so that he could walk. ...
— A Daughter of the Dons - A Story of New Mexico Today • William MacLeod Raine
... astonished, placidly prepared for vague eventualities. Through it all she wondered why she clung to the belief that in another day or two the storm would be forgotten, and people playing quoits on deck, dancing, singing coon songs in the music-room, or grumbling ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... stupidly. That he should not crush the Italian vermin forthwith was beyond his comprehension, but evidently such was not the schalischim's wish. Grumbling, he slipped his sword slowly back into its sheath, and, at that moment, several of the Capuan senators in Hannibal's train gathered round him with protestations and expressions of regret. The general looked ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne
... statesman who is neither blind nor deaf must be aware how the dull despair of the population increases day by day; he is bound to hear the sullen grumbling of the great masses, and if he be conscious of his own responsibility he must pay due ...
— In the World War • Count Ottokar Czernin
... coffin lid, continually repeating, 'Easy, easy!' Behind him waddled Eleonora Karpovna in a black dress, also adorned with crape, surrounded by her whole family; after all of them, Viktor stepped out in a new uniform with a sword with crape round the handle. The coffin-bearers, grumbling and altercating among themselves, laid the coffin on the hearse; the garrison soldiers lighted their torches, which at once began crackling and smoking; a stray old woman, who had joined herself on to the party, raised a wail; the deacons began to chant, the ...
— The Jew And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... complexion, her angular figure, her thin body. She felt that she was ugly, and that her ugliness was made repulsive by her miserable costumes, her dismal, woolen dresses which she made herself, her father paying for the material only after much grumbling: she could not induce him to make her a small allowance for her toilet ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
... became gradually more and more convinced that the only way as yet discovered of getting through hard tasks is to set to work and do them; also, that grumbling, as things are at present arranged in this world, does not always, nor I may say often, do good; furthermore, that an ill-tempered child is not, on the whole, likely to be as much loved as a good-tempered one; lastly, that if you ...
— The Cuckoo Clock • Mrs. Molesworth
... were to be allowed to eat it; so you may imagine with what hungry eyes they watched the pears ripening, and prayed for a storm of wind, or a flock of flying foxes, or anything which would cause the fruit to fall. But nothing came, and the old Wife, who was a grumbling, scolding old thing, declared they would infallibly become beggars. So she took to giving her husband nothing but dry bread to eat, and insisted on his working harder than ever, till the poor soul got quite thin; and all because the pears would not ...
— The Junior Classics, Volume 1 • Willam Patten
... one of casual contempt mixed with mild interest. Doree had moved into the shelter of his arm and the grumbling Nicko had also come close but with interest centered more upon his aching scales than ...
— Before Egypt • E. K. Jarvis
... be contented with one's lot," said the old man, "but I don't know how I would be now without a sight of the docks and the shipping, and a yarn with my old comrades on the waterside sometimes, but I am going to try it, whatever. Marged is grumbling shockin' because I don't stop at home in our little cottage. It's a purty place, too, just a mile outside Carmarthen, but quiet it is, shockin' quiet! And you, Gethin Owens, little did I think these two years I bin meeting you about the docks and the shipping, that you wass the son of my old friend, ...
— Garthowen - A Story of a Welsh Homestead • Allen Raine
... highways—plenty of obstacles, you see, and few luxuries. Therefore with naive delight they welcomed one new invention after another, overlooking its defects and considering themselves greatly blessed to have anything as fine. Probably we, who are a thousand per cent better off than they, do more grumbling over the tiny flaws in the mechanism of our lives than they did over ...
— Steve and the Steam Engine • Sara Ware Bassett
... news, young master, mighty bad news. Thou knowest how in Essex men have refused to pay the poll-tax, but there has been naught of that on this side of the river as yet, though there is sore grumbling, seeing that the tax-collectors are not content with drawing the tax from those of proper age, but often demand payments for boys and girls, who, as they might see, are still under fourteen. It happened so to-day at Dartford. ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty
... that he was capable of astounding freaks of generosity. Stay, there was another item,—Sir Paul's invariable courtesy to the club servants, which courtesy he somehow contrived to combine with continual grumbling. The club servants held him in affection. It was probably this sixth item that outweighed any of the others in Mr. Prohack's ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... of wine. The sparrow, seeing that the carter did not turn out of the way, but would go on in the track in which the dog lay, so as to drive over him, called out, 'Stop! stop! Mr Carter, or it shall be the worse for you.' But the carter, grumbling to himself, 'You make it the worse for me, indeed! what can you do?' cracked his whip, and drove his cart over the poor dog, so that the wheels crushed him to death. 'There,' cried the sparrow, 'thou cruel villain, thou hast killed my friend the dog. Now mind what I say. This deed ...
— Grimms' Fairy Tales • The Brothers Grimm
... Joe desired. He slouched over, grumbling. Stiffy explained how the debits were on one side, the credits on the other. Each customer had a page to himself. Joe observed that before turning up his account Stiffy had consulted an ...
— The Huntress • Hulbert Footner
... away, grumbling as they went, and the last thing that I saw was the despairing face of Otomie my wife, as she gazed after me, faint with the secret agony of our parting. But when I came to the head of the stairway, Guatemoc, who stood near, took ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard
... one whom they had represented as at least a great liar. Whether my wages were to be paid to them, or even what they were to be, I never heard. I made up my mind at once that the best thing would be to do the work without grumbling, and do it as well as I could, for that would be doing no harm to anyone, but the contrary, while it would give me the better chance of making my escape. But though I was determined to get away the first ...
— Adela Cathcart, Vol. 3 • George MacDonald
... became quite scandalized at the conduct of the visitors at the feast, and was so disgusted at what was going on during the dances, that he complained to Sandoval, who reported to Cortes that the good Father was grumbling and scolding out of all measure. Our general, always prudent in his proceedings, came up to Olmedo, affecting to disapprove of the indecent conduct of his guests, and requested of him to order a solemn mass and thanksgiving, and to give ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr
... in his forward and peering look, his indomitable energy in every movement of his body. It did not surprise me to learn in his later conversation that he was a Republican. He spoke at once to us both, saying in a kind of grumbling shout: ...
— On Something • H. Belloc
... if to make amends for being the fourth, was a lovely chubby baby of eight months, so full of sunshine and content and blessed good health, that although her two first teeth were just grumbling through, she would sit in her high chair by the window or roll and wriggle about on the floor, singing tuneless songs and telling herself wordless stories, an hour at a time, without making any demands on anybody, so that grandma and the ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, September 1878, No. 11 • Various
... Bertie turned away grumbling; he was not a whit wiser than he had been before, and he felt somehow that he had been reproved, and, more than that, warned. But he was not very seriously impressed, and he determined some day to find out the whole history of his Uncle Frank: ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... enabled him to write for the remainder of his life with an untrammelled pen, and to live in comfort and ease, enjoying the otium cum dignitate, to which he attached supreme importance,—so different from Carlyle, who toiled in poverty at Chelsea to declare truth for truth's sake, grumbling, yet lofty in his meditations, the depth of which Macaulay ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... adversity with fears and complaints. Our Lord tells us expressly that we are to take no thought for the morrow, because we can not serve God and Mammon. I have been taking thought for a hundred morrows, and that not patiently, but grumbling in my heart at His dealings with me. Therefore now ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald
... verdant shores of the bay within which nestles the little town, exploring the thick woods which make it look like a nest embowered amongst thick foliage, admiring the villas, each provided with a little bathing house, and moving about and grumbling, at last ...
— A Journey to the Interior of the Earth • Jules Verne
... confess that the English-speaking people one meets with on the Continent are, taken as a whole, a most disagreeable contingent. One hardly ever hears the English language spoken on the Continent, without hearing grumbling and sneering. ...
— Diary of a Pilgrimage • Jerome K. Jerome
... O reader, might not easily credit. And here each man chose a site where he would build his hut, and settle down, and marry perhaps, and even forget the sea; when Captain Shard having filled his tanks and barrels peremptorily ordered them to weigh anchor. There was much dissatisfaction, even some grumbling, but when a man has twice saved his fellows from death by the sheer freshness of his mind they come to have a respect for his judgment that is not shaken by trifles. It must be remembered that in the affair ...
— Tales of Wonder • Lord Dunsany
... about this poorer population of Rome. They must have lived from hand to mouth. Since their votes controlled elections, [16] they were courted by candidates for office and kept from grumbling by being fed and amused. Such poor citizens, too lazy for steady work, too intelligent to starve, formed, with the other riffraff of a great city, the elements of a dangerous mob. And the mob, henceforth, plays an ever- larger part in ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... grimalkin for some time, because he had a black, satanic look; though he was really a very good cat, and when one looked closely at him, he was soft and caress-inviting of coat. They had stoned him to death, and one of his eyes hung out. The poor old woman went on grumbling, shaking with emotion, and carrying her dead cat by the tail, like ...
— An Iceland Fisherman • Pierre Loti
... Thus, there beside the grumbling sea, these two—full man and woman, having weighed the issues of this life, the complex threads of soul and body, obligation and right, willed that they would take to themselves out of all eternity a few days, a few nights, ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... the passage she suddenly dropped forward like a cypress-tree, and gave him her forehead to kiss. He kissed it with some little warmth, and confided to her, in friendly accents, that she was a fool, and off he went, grumbling inarticulately, to his ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... regular detective. I am very glad I did not know it till a short time before you gave it up. In the first place, I should have been horrified, and, in the second place, I should have been constantly uneasy about you. However, as this is to be the last time, I will let you go without grumbling." ...
— Colonel Thorndyke's Secret • G. A. Henty
... dressed in soldier-clothes can stand twice as much bad liquor as one clothed in the garb of a citizen. Secondly, that to be a good soldier a man should be able to go at least forty-eight hours without eating, drinking, or sleeping, and then endure guard-duty all night in a drenching rain, without grumbling or fault-finding. Thirdly, I think I have discovered that the martial road to glory 'is a hard ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
... continued to increase. Soon the Pyrenees was rolling madly in the huge waves that marched in an unending procession from out of the darkness of the west. Sail was shortened as fast as both watches could work, and, when the tired crew had finished, its grumbling and complaining voices, peculiarly animal-like and menacing, could be heard in the darkness. Once the starboard watch was called aft to lash down and make secure, and the men openly advertised their sullenness and unwillingness. Every slow movement was a protest and a threat. The ...
— South Sea Tales • Jack London
... retreating back. "Can't think, though, why you don't leave the girls alone. However they start it always ends that way. You and I have seen quite a number take to the streets, and you don't do much to prevent them short of grumbling at them." ...
— To Love • Margaret Peterson
... rather from the point of view of the Russian recoiling from a despotism compared to which Democracy seems to be no government at all, than from the point of view of the American or Englishman who is free enough already to begin grumbling over Democracy as 'the tyranny of the majority' and 'the coming slavery.'"[1085] If Kropotkin is a "Democrat," then Ravachol, Vaillant, Henry, Pallas, and Bresci were ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker
... big red-headed Irishman who had been with Alexandra for five years and who was actually her foreman, though he had no such title, was grumbling about the new silo she had put up that spring. It happened to be the first silo on the Divide, and Alexandra's neighbors and her men were skeptical about it. "To be sure, if the thing don't work, we'll have plenty of feed without ...
— O Pioneers! • Willa Cather
... restraint, may seem extraordinary. There is not a word on the subject in Evelyn's Diary. In Narcissus Luttrell's Diary is a remarkable entry made five weeks after the butchery. The letters from Scotland, he says, described that kingdom as perfectly tranquil, except that there was still some grumbling about ecclesiastical questions. The Dutch ministers regularly reported all the Scotch news to their government. They thought it worth while, about this time, to mention that a collier had been taken by a privateer near Berwick, that the Edinburgh mail had ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... into figures; his audiences would listen to his financial statements for five continuous hours without wearying. But his greatest triumph as finance minister was in making the country accept without grumbling an enormous income tax because he ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume X • John Lord |
